Mission Impossible 7 is about choices
“Your mission, should you choose to accept” is arguably the most iconic element of the now 7 and soon to be 8 installments long movie franchise- Mission Impossible. This line of dialogue that marks the beginning of each film by providing the top-secret agents of the top-secret Impossible Missions Force a choice of whether to embark on the mission. Curiously though, that choice is offered after the agent is told the details of the mission.
This makes sense for the agents as they can now make an informed choice after assessing the risks of the mission. However, the other, less iconic line of dialogue, “As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions” implies that the government does not care for their IMF agents to provide them an opportunity at an informed choice.
I was never a fan of the Mission Impossible films. I didn’t hate them, I was just indifferent to their existence. Mission Impossible 7 did not change that in me, but it did catch my attention with how many choices this film offers its characters. The choice to accept the mission, the choice of whom to sell the key, the choice between saving Grace or Ilsa, the choice to join the IMF given to the characters, hell, even the choice to accept or deny the money Kittridge pays Grace for the key.
However, around the Abu Dhabi section of the film, I realised that the choice to accept the mission is largely fabricated. When Ethan Hunt decides to decline the mission and instead work on a personal mission to destroy the entity, his actions are framed as “going rogue” and not just declining the mission.
We are later told that Ethan, Benji, and Luther were offered “the choice” to join the IMF only when they could no longer run from the law. Their choice was between prison and eternal servitude to the government, which is not a fair choice for the agent recruits.
The end to the film, when the narration talks to Ethan about how he hasn’t saved Grace by offering her the choice to join the IMF, but has only bought her some time before her death. That line hit it all home for me. Mission Impossible knows that all the choices offered in the film weren’t fair, in fact, they weren’t even choices. The choices are all futile, they make you choose between a rock and a hard place.
However, Ethan Hunt is trying to be the spanner in the machine. His tendency of going rogue, his choice to destroy the entity rather than betraying the USA and giving its access to someone else, his choice to try and save both Ilsa and Grace rather than let one of them die, his choice to spare Paris’ life. Ethan is the one variable that the entity can’t calculate in its plan for world domination.
Mission Impossible 7 also made the meta-choice to break itself up into 2 parts, not because the story is too long to fit into a single film, its because of capitalism. 1 story split between 2 films is way more profitable than 1 story per film. Dead Reckoning Part One is a slow and boring film. Its more of a highlight reel of action scenes that drag on for way too long, with some hints of a story sprinkled over it.
The story is the most superficial telling of the horrors of a sentient AI that can control the internet, and a high school understanding of geopolitics where the big shock reveal is the US government being power-hungry and evil. The only times the AI actually flexes its power is when it feeds Ethan the wrong directions in the voice of his friend. This hurdle is immediately fixed by switching to analog radio systems which works but removes any further threat from the entity.
Mission Impossible did the most confusing thing a film could do for me. It made me rethink the entire 7 films long franchise due to a single line at the end, while being the most boring film I watched this year.
